Confessing Our Way to Joy

Well, let me invite you, this morning to turn in your Bibles to Romans chapter 7. Romans chapter 7. Are we going to lose Mike here? Can we?

OK, there we go. Romans chapter 7 for our time of study in the word this morning, we We are doing a study, through Romans 567 and 8, and, as we continue in our study of this section of Romans, a journey to the heart of the gospel, we come again this morning to the second half of Romans 7, and I, I did initially at the beginning of the week intend to be in Romans 8, looking at verses 1 and 2 this morning, but I feel The need to linger a bit longer in the second half of Romans 7 and to squeeze a few more insights out of these verses before we enter into the glories of Romans 8.

By the way, Not all of the bulletins that were passed out had the notes for the sermons. So if you need notes for the sermon this morning, could you just raise your hand if you don't have those in the bulletin.

Anyone need the notes? That you do not have them in the bulletin? OK, I guess most got them or no one wants them. 80.

You need to know, as many of you probably already do know, that there is nothing quite like Romans chapter 8. In the pages of Scripture and all of ancient literature and in all of literature throughout human history, there is nothing like Romans chapter 8 in, we want to be careful, to be sufficiently prepared. We are right now at the foothills of the heights of Romans chapter 8, and I think we do well to just do a check and to make sure that we have drawn everything out of Romans 7 that that the Lord wants us to get so that we're ready to scale the heights that we find in Romans chapter.

8.

we're gonna talk about, confession this morning. If you want to give a title to the message, it would be confessing our way to Joy, confessing our way to, joy. I want you to think about the man that, or the two men that Solomon speaks about in Proverbs chapter 28 verse 13. He says, He who conceals his transgression will not prosper, but he who confesses and forsakes his transgression will find compassion.

Essentially, Solomon is imagining two men. And both men have committed the same sin or set of sins, so they're identical in that way. However, one of those men does not prosper. He does not find compassion, and he does not experience freedom from those sins that he has committed.

The other man has committed the same sins or the same set of sins. However, on the Other side of his sins, he is prospering. He finds compassion, mercy, and grace with God, and he also is able to forsake and walk in freedom from those sins that are in his history. Two very different outcomes, two men committing the same sins, but on the other side of those sins, very different outcomes.

One prospers, one finds mercy and compassion with God, one is actually able to walk away from And walk in freedom from his sin and the other experiences the opposite, and the key to those different outcomes, the key is confession. Confession is the hinge that these outcomes swing upon. In 1 John chapter 1 and verse 9, John says, if we confess our sins, John knows that he's talking to people like us who sin. But he says if on the other side of our sins that we commit, if we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us of our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

So on the other side of us committing sins, violating the will of God, the law of God, we can. forgiveness and we can experience cleansing. And by the way, the purpose of cleansing, it was a means to an end, and that end was fellowship with God. If we were unclean, we're not able to enjoy practically speaking, fellowship with God.

So the person who confesses his sins experiences forgiveness, cleansing, and thus fellowship. with God. He's able to walk in the enjoyment of that. And again, the key thing that makes that difference on the other side of sin to be able to enjoy these blessings is this thing that we call confession.

Given just these two verses, all of us should be thinking, what, of all people, we as believers in Jesus Christ, need to become practiced in the art. Of confession, of confessing our sins. The Greek word for confess means to say the same thing. In other words, saying the same thing about our sins that God says about our sins, that when we have stumbled, when we have fallen, when we have sinned, that we confess those, we identify those sins, we speak them out loud before God, we confess those to God.

And on the other side of that confession, we find compassion with God, prosperity before Him, the ability to walk in freedom from those sins, forgiveness from God and cleansing, and thus the practical enjoyment of fellowship with Him. Confession is absolutely critical. You will not, I will not live in the fullness of all that God has for us in Christ if we don't know how to go about this business of confessing. Our sins, and that's what we're going to be focusing on this morning, because if we can confess and do this right, there is joy on the other side of that, and that's why we're titling this Confessing Our Way to joy.

Let, let me ask you, how many of you have, have read the book, God Smuggler? OK, written by brother Andrew, a few of you. In the book, Brother Andrew talks about, his life before Christ and And then his salvation testimony, and then his life after coming to know Jesus and how God used him to smuggle Bibles behind the, the iron curtain. God has used him in a great way over the decades of his life and his ministry.

But Brother Andrew tells about a little bit at the beginning of the book about his life before he came to faith in Jesus. And he talks about how he lived an absolutely wasteful, And sinful life, but he shares that as time progressed, the deeper he got into sin, the longer he remained in his sin. There was a longing that was developing in his heart to be free of those sins and to be free of the guilt of those sins. Well, shortly or shortly before he was saved, I guess in the months before, he was saved.

Brother Andrew purchased an unusual pet. He purchased an ape for a pet. And he had not had this animal for very long before he noticed that whenever he would approach the animal and touch the animal or try to touch the animal around the midsection. the ape would recoil or pull away in pain, and so Brother Andrew was not able to get close to the animal or embrace the animal because the animal would pull away.

Upon closer inspection, Brother Andrew discovered that evidently when the animal was a baby, someone had tied a piece of wire around the midsection of that animal and had never taken it off. And so as the animal grew, the wire became more and more embedded in the flesh of the animal, obviously causing it a tremendous amount of pain, and ultimately would have killed the animal if it wasn't removed. So upon discovering that fact that night, Brother Andrew took a razor and he shaved a 3 inch swath around the affected area where the wire could be exposed, and then he took a sharp knife and with his friends in the room and looking on, Brother Andrew carefully cut into the tender flesh.

Until the wire was exposed and then he cut the wire and then began very carefully to pull the wire out of the animal.

As soon as he was done, this is what he shares in his book God Smuggler, as soon as the wire was completely removed from the animal, he says that the monkey jumped up into the air, did a cartwheel, jumped on Brother Andrew's shoulder, started pulling his hair and dancing on his shoulders, and then around the room, obviously extremely happy about his deliverance from that imprisoning wire. Brother Andrew, again, the Lord's been working on his conscience. He, he could not help but see in that animal and in that wire, even in his unregenerate state, something of a metaphor that gave him perspective.

Listen to what he says.

He says, after that, after that surgery, the ape and I were inseparable. I think I identified with him as strongly as he with me. I think I saw in the wire that had bound him a parallel to the chains of guilt still so tight around myself, and in his release, I think I saw the thing I too longed for. His sin, God ultimately delivered him from.

But I just want to focus just briefly if we can on that animal. For that animal to get to a place where he's doing cartwheels and dancing for joy, he had to allow Himself to be shaved and the affected area to be exposed. And then had to allow himself to be cut into so that the wire itself would be exposed and so that the wire then could be cut and removed. And on the other side of the surgery came the cartwheels.

If you want a one word summary of Romans 8, Write down the word cartwheels. That's literally what Paul is doing in Romans chapter 8. And as Paul in Romans chapter 8, verse 1 and following, there's, there, there's no denying this, he comes springing into Romans 8 verse 1 all the way through the end of the chapter in a state of heightened worship. joy and excitement.

And as we see these cartwheels, these gospel cartwheels, as it were, we should not only want to listen to what he's saying in Romans 8, but our thought ought to be, where's he coming from? Where, where did he just come from that caused him to come springing into this chapter with such joy, delight, and fantastic worship. Where Paul is coming from, guys, is Romans 7. The second half of Romans 7, he's coming from the depths of confession and understanding and looking honestly and searchingly.

At his sin and he's vocalizing that and confessing that and he's taking us all with him as he is doing this and then it's almost like Romans 7 is the diving board and the diver lands on that diving board and it, it goes down real low and then the diver is able to spring very high. And that's the function of Romans 7. And so if you want to really be where Paul is as he's expressing the joys of Romans 8, you first must go with him through the depths of Romans 7 and learn what he does in these verses, because it only serves to enrich the glories of what he expresses in Romans 8.

What we're gonna do is, and we won't spend a lot of time on each of these, but we're gonna Learn 6 final lessons from Romans chapter 7, verse 15 or 14 through 25 on the subject of confession, 6 lessons about confession of sin that will enable us to go deeper into the experience of the joys of God's grace.

Let me just read this passage one more time, beginning in Romans 7:14. Paul says, for we know that the law is spiritual, but I am a flesh sold into bondage to sin. For what I am doing, I do not understand, for I am not practicing what I would like to do, but I am doing the very thing I hate. But if I do the very thing I do not want to do, I agree with the law confessing that the law is good.

So now no longer am I the one doing it, but sin which dwells in me, for I know that nothing good dwells in me that is in my flesh, for the willing is present in me, but the doing of the good is not. For the good that I want, I do not do, but I practice the very evil that I do not want. But if I am doing the very thing I do not want, I am no longer the one doing it, but sin which dwells in me. I find then the principle that evil is present in me, the one who wants to do good, for I joyfully concur with the law of God in the inner man, but I see a different law in the members of my body waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin which is in my members.

Wretched man that I am, who will set me free from the body of this death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then on the one hand I myself with my mind I'm serving the law of God, but on the other with my flesh, the law of sin. 6 lessons that I want us to learn.

We've already learned a number of truths and lessons from these verses. I want to sweep 6 of them together with the time we have, this morning. Lesson number 1, and this was essentially, this is a slightly reworded version of the last point of the last sermon that we preached from Romans 7, and that is this, that the path to a deeper experience of gospel grace comes through. A maturing honesty or forthrightness in searching out and confessing our own sin.

Again, I find it fascinating that, that, in this section of Romans 56 and 7 and 8, That Paul feels the need to go into the depths of confession and pondering sin and the reality of indwelling sin and giving expression of that vocally that he takes the time to do that before he brings us with him into the realities and the glories of Romans chapter 8. If Paul would have left out verses 14 to 25, I don't know that any of us would have thought that anything was amiss or missing.

In this section of Romans, but Paul is trying to instruct us here. And he's basically saying, if you want to go with me into Romans 8 and the truths we're going to celebrate and really understand and appreciate these truths, you must first come with me into the reality of contemplating sin.

And being honest and forthright about that, the path to a deeper experience of gospel grace comes through a maturing forthrightness and searching out and confessing, notice the wording here, our own sins. All of us are naturally very good at confessing and searching out the sins of other people, right? But what, it takes no grace to do that. It takes no grace to search out and to confess the sins.

of other people. Any unsaved person can do that. Any right wing and left wing radio talk show host can do that extremely well. Any politician on either side of the aisle can do this extremely well.

In fact, we know from the book of Revelation. That the devil is very good at confessing the sins of other people. He is the accuser of the brethren. So it takes no grace and no skill to be able to identify and point out and to be able to talk to people about the sins of somebody else.

Even the devil does that. But the path to a deeper experience of gospel grace in your life comes through a maturing. And searching honesty. In confessing your own sins.

And by the way, according to the Sermon on the Mount, your ability to help other people with their sins comes from your own ability to search out and confess your own sins and address the beams that are in your own eye. So Paul's going to take us into the glories of Romans 8, but first he says, we got to talk about sin, and he lingers here. He's not just saying, yeah, we're all sinners and, we need a savior. Let's move on to Romans 8.

No, he's confessing and we're like, Yeah, yeah, yeah, we get it. that's, that's a good point, Paul. And then he repeats himself and says almost the same thing again, perhaps partly intended to slow us down and get us comfortable here with doing what he is doing and searching out and confessing. Sin.

I believe Paul's doing this because he knows we're not going to get Romans 8 if we do not understand what he's doing and begin to practice what he's doing in the second half of Romans 7. There's a second lesson that we can learn from the way Paul is speaking in the second half of Romans 7, and that is this, that it is the growing experience of gospel grace. We're going to flip around the first statement. it is the growing experience of gospel grace that actually gives us the courage to be more honest and searching out and confessing our own sins.

Definitely being able to search out and be honest about our own sins is a part of the path to going deeper in our experience of God's grace. But your thought may be, where do I get the courage to slow down and look at myself in the mirror and see my sin, and to be honest and searching that out and giving confession to that, where do I get the courage and the boldness to do that? I don't want to look at those things, Pastor Milton. Well, where you get that courage?

You get it from the gospel. It is the growing experience of gospel grace that gives us the courage to go even deeper in our honesty and searching out and confessing our own sins. Notice the context in which Paul is going this deep and talking about and confessing his sin. He has spent all of Romans 5 and Romans 6 and the first part of Romans 7 doing nothing but marinating in the gospel and contemplating the love of God and the freedom that is His in the gospel.

In Romans 5, Paul is talking about how we have been justified. He's exulting in that we exult, we exalt, we exalt. We're no longer under condemnation. We've been clothed with the righteousness of Jesus and coming into Romans 6, we are free from sin, free from sin, free from sin.

He asserts it again and again. And it's in the context of talking about these gospel realities that Paul now in that environment, goes to this level in the second half of Romans 7. Going deep and talking about his sin. In Romans 5, Paul, he would, he would say the reason I can be gut level honest and searching out my sin is because I know I'm justified.

I know no matter what I find, no matter what surfaces, that I am righteous before God. I am uncondemned. Some people are unable to do that. I, I remember a number of years ago counseling with a Husband and wife in their home and the husband perpetually refused to confess any wrongdoing, even to a minor degree.

The wife was willing to acknowledge her part in, in some of the issues in their marriage, but it was like squeezing blood out of a turnip to get this guy to ever confess even the slightest thing. And in counseling them, I was trying to chase this guy down to just get him to, to confess and acknowledge at least a small part of this fight that had happened between himself and his wife, and he kept on resisting. And so I kept on pushing. And finally, in exasperation, this guy just screamed out, he says, OK, OK, I've sinned, damn me to hell.

And it was then that I realized what the problem was. This guy did not know how to look at his sin. Without it equaling condemnation. This guy did not have security in the gospel.

Paul was wrapped in the security blanket of the righteousness of Jesus. I'm justified. I'm not condemned, and that gave him a boldness that many of us lack. To be honest and searching and forthright about his sin.

Also in Romans 5, he talks about how the love of God has been poured out in his heart to the Holy Spirit who's been given to him. And so he's got this love relationship with God through Jesus Christ. It's that environment of love, that environment of grace that is reigning in his life, that acceptance, that embrace from God in Jesus Christ that created An environment in which Paul was able to be gut level, heart-wrenchingly honest in searching out and speaking about and confessing his sin.

So it's, it's both and it is our experience of the gospel that creates an environment in which we of all people as believers can be honest, about our sin and looking at it and speaking it out loud, confessing it.

And then as we do that, that is part of the path to going even deeper in our experience of God's grace, which then creates a richer environment for us to be even more honest about our sin. And the wonderful gospel cycle continues. I hope you appreciate the fact that, if maybe you're concealing sin and you're like afraid to confess it to God, afraid to look at it, and afraid to confess it to other people, I hope you realize that the cross has already outed you. I hope you understand that.

What the cross reveals about me is that I am such a desperately sinful person that my salvation required the brutal slaughter of the perfect Son of God that I might be saved. The worst gossip that could ever be whispered about me has been blared from the cross. And so all you need to know about me by just looking at me under the light of the cross, and if we really see the cross in that way, we begin to realize that we're all already exposed by the cross. And so what is there left to hide?

We know from Isaiah 53 that that Christ was pierced from Our transgressions, he was crushed from the weight of our iniquities. We know from the teaching of Scripture that our sins, one way of looking at the cross is that our sins are what killed Jesus, which makes us violators of the command you shall not kill. We are all murderers. We are murderers of the perfect and spotless Son of God.

That is the worst thing anybody can do, and we are all guilty of that. And yet amazingly, at that location, where we all committed our absolutely worst act at that very spot when we believed in Jesus, God embraced us and brought us into friendship with Himself. And if God can forgive us for killing His Son, what other sin have you and I committed that we would be afraid to bring to God and confess aloud to Him? What other sin would we think God would not give us grace for?

So it is a growing experience of the gospel and the grace of God that creates a rich and fertile environment in which we can be honest in confessing our sins in any matter. There's a third lesson that we can learn from the apostle Paul and what he's doing in these verses, and that is that our confessions of our failure should feature a heavy use of the biblical language of sin. Our confessions of our failure should feature a heavy use of the biblical language of sin. we all come up with a bunch of different ways for talking about our sin, right?, maybe, maybe you've snapped at your children, and at the end of the day, you're feeling bad about that, and you sit down with your child and say, son, I I'm really sorry, Daddy's had a bad day.

And then there's a meeting of the eye like, OK, all right, everything's cool, all right, and it's over with. But where's, where's the biblical language of sin? We live in a culture today where the old vocabulary of sin that we find in scripture has been laid aside. It's ancient.

It's outmoded, and it's been replaced with psychological terminology. and I'm not against necessarily psychological terminology, but when that terminology is used in the place of the biblical vocabulary for talking about our number one problem, which is our sin problem, that's where it gets really, really insidious because someone, think about it, if our, if our culture can succeed in getting someone to look at their sin issues and attach different labels to their sin problems, And then they come to the scripture.

Guess what, they might say this is the inspired word of God, but it doesn't address their needs. Because they've got their own vocabulary and the Bible never mentions that vocabulary.

But if we use the biblical vocabulary, regarding sin that God uses in his word and instructs us to use and that Paul even models here, To the world's ears, it might sound harsh, but actually, it's the only thing that gives us hope because what, Jesus came to address our sin problem. And if we can understand our sin issues in biblical terminology, we then began to see the hope and the healing and the forgiveness, and the deliverance that is offered to us in Scripture. Paul, in speaking about his failures, verse 17 calls it sin, verse 20 calls it sin, verse 23, sin, verse 25, sin, verse 19, evil, verse 21, evil.

just this week, someone in high office failed royally, and they went so far as to describe what they did as a mistake.

A serious mistake. And he said, and I will redeem myself. And that's the difference between a Christian and a non-Christian. A nonbeliever looks at their failures and says it's a mistake that may be as far as they go.

And they're like, I will redeem myself. We Christians, we're no better than a guy like that. We're no better than he is. What he has done is a reminder to all of us of what's wrong with every one of us as a result of the fall.

The difference between someone like that and a believer is a believer says, I've sinned against God. I've sinned against God and I cannot redeem myself. I need someone outside of me to be my redeemer. When we use the biblical vocabulary of sin, that's when the scripture just jumps to life and color because it addresses the sin problem, and it gives us hope.

Let us be careful in the context of our relationships with one another as we're confessing sins to God and to one another that that we speak of our sins as God speaks about our sins. Again, the word confess means to say the same thing. Let's talk about our sins the way God speaks about our sins. Let's make a big deal out of our sins.

As Paul Tripp says, make a big deal out of your sins. Because when you make a big deal out of your sins, when you're confessing them, you're making a big deal out of what Jesus died for. When you minimize your sins, you're minimizing the very thing that Jesus died for. Use God's vocabulary in speaking about and in confessing your sin.

Don't go to God and say, God, I've had a bad day. Please forgive me. No, God does not forgive people for having bad days. That's not Christ didn't die for bad days.

use the biblical vocabulary and Paul models that throughout this section of confession and honesty in these verses. There's 1/4 lesson that we can learn from what Paul does in these verses, and that is this that healthy confession of sin involves confessing sin as coming from within ourselves. Healthy confession of sin involves confessing sin as coming from within. selves.

This is so huge, and it's inescapable in these verses. Look, in Romans chapter 7, verse 17, Paul says, no longer am I the one doing it, but sin, which dwells in me, verse 18, for I know that nothing good dwells in me that is in my flesh, for the willing is present in me, but the doing of good is not present in. Verse 20, if I am doing the very thing I do not want, I am no longer the one doing it, but sin which dwells in me. Verse 21, I find in the principle that evil is present in me.

Verse 23, I see a different law in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin, which is in my members. Again and again, what we observe here is the apostle Paul limiting his focus to the sin that arose from within. Himself It's extremely easy for us. To think of sin as something that's coming from without that like we're made to sin and maybe even when we're confessing sin what we'll do is we'll wrap our circumstances into our confession.

Well, my husband was doing this and was doing that and was doing this and so of course I did this and yeah I was wrong, but, but even in the confession it's primarily A description of external circumstances that are tied to that reluctant acknowledgment of failure on someone's part. Just like Adam in the Garden of Eden when confronted about his sin, he said to God, the woman You gave me, she gave me to eat. And then at the very end, and I ate. The woman whom you gave to me, she gave to me.

And I ate. That's not the Confession that we see in these verses. I'm sure that Paul, the sins he's talking about were relational sins. perhaps people wronged him in some way, and he found himself, in his heart, thinking evil thoughts of them and feeling envy and, and jealousy and anger and struggling with, with bitterness or, or maybe everything was going great.

God was using him in a great way and As a result of those circumstances, pride began to surface in his heart, and he had to do battle, against that. I'm sure that the sins he's talking about here are tied to external situations. But what Paul is saying here is that I need look no further than inside of me to be able to confess my sin. See, God doesn't forgive you for your circumstances.

If you got tough circumstances that have provoked you to sin, God won't, he doesn't, he doesn't forgive you for your circumstances. That's not what you need to confess to God. Confess your sin, and as you confess your sin, as Thomas Watson, the Puritan says, confess sin down at the fountain level. You're not just confessing the acts of sin, but the fountain from which those sins have sprung.

That's why David in Psalm 515, I believe, after committing adultery with Bathsheba, killing her husband, living for months in self-deception and deceiving of other people, In the context of his confession, here he is, he's confessing his sin to the Lord, and then he has this aha moment in the middle of prayer. He says, behold, like it's just dawning on him. I was conceived in iniquity and in sin. My mother conceived me.

He's saying, Lord, what I'm realizing is that these acts that I've committed are an accurate reflection of who I am and my fallenness. They are a manifestation of something that is wrong inside of me. James talks about this in James chapter 4, verse 1. James is talking to believers who are fighting with each other, quarreling with each other.

And he comes in, as it were, and he breaks it up, and he says, what is the source of quarrels and conflicts among you? Who started this? Where is this conflict coming from? And he knows at this point that if he stopped here, every one of the people in the church that he's talking to who are fighting, all of their fingers will point outside of themselves at other people, right?

Yeah, that's the source. He's the source of this conflict. But James says, is not the source your cravings that wage war in your members. The source of these conflicts are the lusts that are inside of you.

You lust, he says, and you do not have, so you commit murder. And he's not talking about the fact that they were actually physically killing each other, but Jesus says to hate your brother, to be angry against your brother, is to commit murder in your heart. So you lust, and because that lust is not satisfied and you don't have, you, you hate and you're angry and you're bitter. Against those who do have or who are getting in the way of you having what it is that your desires inside want you to have so badly.

And then when you look at those who do have what it is that you want so badly, you are envious and cannot obtain. So you fight and you quarrel. But the source of these conflicts, he's trying to train the believers to look inside themselves, to get their eyes off of other people and look inside themselves and for each one of them to say, I am the problem. My lust inside of me are the problem in this relational conflict that we are having.

In Luke 18:13, the tax collector comes to the temple. And says, God be merciful to me, the sinner. Thus centered, that's a staggering statement. I am the sinner.

The tax collector. is saying His eyes are only on himself, only on his sin, and that's what he's confessing. And Jesus says that man went to his house justified or righteous. We all have this instinct, guys, don't deny it, we all have this instinct to want to profess our innocence and to protect it at all costs.

Albert Camus, a guy who I've never quoted from in a sermon. And perhaps never will the existentialist philosopher who, to his credit, had an unrelenting eye. And a brutally honest pen and assessing man in his fallenness. He says the idea that comes most naturally to man, as if from his very nature, is the idea of his innocence.

We are all exceptional cases. We all want to appeal against something. Each of us insist on being innocent at all costs, even if he has to accuse the whole human race, and heaven itself, in order to protect. Our innocence or at least to minimize it.

But that should not be the instinct of the believer. In the context of the grace of the gospel, we have freedom to be honest in confessing our sins to God and to each other. There's a 5th lesson we can learn. From what Paul does in these verses, and that is that our confessions of sin should embody a recognition that our sin is not the full truth of who we are.

this is one of the things that might be easy to miss about what Paul does in these verses. Our confessions of sin do serve as a manifestation of the indwelling evil and the depravity that is in us and thus our need for salvation. However, when we as believers are confessing our sin, we must, in our confession, make sure that our confession embodies a recognition and awareness that our sin is not the full truth of who we are. Paul says, so now no longer am I the one doing it, but sin which dwells in me.

Repeatedly, he's like, I did this, I did this. I did not do the good I wanted to do. I did the evil that I did not want. And he's, he's accepting responsibility, and yet he does pull away a bit.

Twice, once in verse 17, once in verse 20. And says, and yet I must say that it is not I that I'm doing it, but it's sin that dwells in me. In other words, there's a part of me that is sin, and it's been manifested in what has been done, but it is not the full truth of who I am. This is absolutely critical.

there are various ways that sin wins the battle in our lives. on the other side of having committed sin, if you commit sin and you deny that you've sinned, sin wins. If you commit sin and then do what some people do and say, No, actually, yeah, I did that, but that's not sin. Actually, that's good, and you try to call it good, sin wins.

If you commit sin. And then try to minimize your sin. Sin wins. If you commit an act of sin and when called to account for it, you blame others for your sin.

Sin wins. If you are confronted about your sin and you blame your circumstances for your sin, sin wins. But also, there's another way that sin wins. If you commit an act of sin, and on the other side of committing that sin as a believer, if you view your sin as a complete reflection of who you are, and your basic attitude is, this is who I am, and who I will forever be, sin wins.

As a believer in Jesus. You may sin. But do not buy into the lie that that sin represents the sum total of who you are. If you buy into that, that is worldly sorrow.

that leads to Despair and even further sin. There are people who have professed to know the Lord and have shown fruit of saving faith in their lives and They have fallen into sin in their thoughts and in their actions. And the devil and the surrounding culture whispers to them, this is who you are. This is who you are.

And They buy into that lie perhaps for a season. This is who I am and I am nothing else. I love the fact that Paul is so gut-wrenchingly brutally honest and thorough, and yet in verse 17 and verse 20 he does back away and say, This is the sin in me. This is not the sum total of who I am.

This is not who I am in Jesus. There's a 6th and final lesson that we can learn from these verses regarding confession, and that is that our confessions of sin should always conclude with a turning to Jesus Christ and confessing our deliverance in Him. what, guys, if you just come to God and just say, yes, I sinned, I did wrong, and I'm confessing it, that's not confession. in, in God's perspective, that's not complete confession.

You must say the same thing God says about your sin. And normally when we think of, I got to say the same thing God says about my sin, that means I got to say it's really, really bad and it killed Jesus, and it's a terrible thing and, and go on and on and just really pound myself with all of the ugly truths about my sin and say all the same things God says. No, what else does God say about your sin? God says your sin is forgivable.

God says your sin, there is atonement that's been provided for your sin. God says that he has delivered you in Jesus Christ from your sin. God says he's going to deliver you in eternity from even the presence of those sins in your history. God tells you that you are free to walk in liberty, in forgiveness, and in grace, deliverance from the power of those sins.

If you're going to come to God and say the same thing God says about your sins, then say everything God says about your sin, even the gospel things that God says about your sin. You have not rightly and thoroughly confessed your sins until you have gone beyond confessing your sins, and confessed the truth about Jesus and what he does for your sins. And that's what Paul does. Confessing his sin in all these verses, verse 24, 0 wretched man that I am, who's going to set me free from the body of this death?

He doesn't ask that question, and then leaves his manuscript and goes and finds an answer and then comes back and writes verse 25. He asked this question because he already knows before he asked it what the answer is. wretched man that I am, who will set me free from the body of this death? Thanks be to God.

Look what he's confessing here. Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Look what he continues to confess in chapter 8, verse 1. Therefore, there There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

Paul's confessing a truth about his sin. And one of the truths about his sin is that though I have sinned, this sin does not bring upon me the condemnation of God because I am in Christ Jesus. That's, that's completing your confession. For the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and death, for what the law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, God did sending his own Son and the lightness of sinful flesh.

And as an offering for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh. We'll break these verses open. I just want you to get Get a feeling for how Paul climaxes this section on confession. Yes, I've sinned, but there's no condemnation because I'm in Christ.

Yes, I've sinned, but the law of the spirit of life has set me free from the law of sin and death. I did not have to do this, nor do I have to continue to do this because I have been set free, and I have been set free because God sent His Son into the world and condemned sin in the flesh. These sins have been condemned. And I have been set free.

When we confess our sins, let us confess the full truth. About our sins, the gospel truth about our sins. This will leave us in a place of gratitude. And celebration of the deliverance that is ours, and it will leave us ready to spring off that diving board into the heights of where Paul goes throughout the rest of Romans 8.

Romans 8, guys, is what Paul said to himself when he found himself in Romans 7 moments. Romans 8 is what he would continue to confess. On the other side of having confessed. His complicity in his own sin.

Make these truths of Jesus a part of your own confession when you confess your sins to God. Let me ask you to bow your heads. This morning, if you're here today and you've never confessed Your sins to God and your need for Deliverance through Christ. Listen, I, I've got just awesome news for you that There's nothing you can do to save yourself or deliver yourself.

God has done what you were utterly unable to do. And sending His Son to die on the cross for your sins. that you might have forgiveness in him. Let His love and His grace that is offered to you in Christ, give you the freedom to say, OK, all right, I'm not going to run.

I'm not going to hide from my sin. I'm not going to be dishonest about it. I, I now can speak honestly and frankly about it because I know no matter how deep my sin goes, how ugly it is, there is a savior for me. And right where you're seated, begin that journey by just calling upon Jesus, who in the fullness of his good heart longs to be your savior.

And we'll forgive all those who call on his name. If you're a believer, listen, let's, let's live this way every day. Of all people, we Christians ought to be the most gut-wrenchingly honest people about ourselves and about our sin. Because we're we're wrapped in the embrace of God, and it's OK.

We now have courage to face the ugliness that's in ourselves because we know we're not condemned. The cross is already out at us anyway. before God and before others and before our own eyes. And may we go deep in addressing the sin issues in us and confessing them, and may we go still deeper in confessing the gospel truths regarding our sin.

May our tongues confess these realities that are affirmed in Romans 8 as a part of our confession. That we end up in a place of hope, deliverance, and freedom, rejoicing and thanksgiving. Lord, thank you for what you've given to us. That we might be saved and thank you for this opportunity that we have even in the next moment or two to give up our offerings to you.

We ask Lord, that you would use the funds that are given to support your work and to spread this, this, this message of the gospel to a lost and a dying world, both in people in this community and around the world, Lord, use these funds to spread the fame of the Lord Jesus Christ. At the same time we give ourselves and our hearts to you. In Christ's name, and all God's people said, and